recycling center tour!

A few months ago, Owen asked me where the “recycle guys” took the stuff that we put into our happy blue bins each week. I told him that everything went to the recycling center, but I wasn’t really sure what that meant or where it was.

What better way to learn about it than to go see for ourselves?

We had to tour it! (Or at least see if we could–)

• Recycling Center Tour: It was our first tour of the summer (our bank tour scheduled for June had to be postponed), and our family was psyched!

We had an awesome tour guide who gave us the skinny on what we should–and shouldn’t–be throwing into our blue containers, and he was great with the little ones.

He answered questions and tried to prepare us for what we’d see once we walked into the sorting area of the center. He taught us a recycling song, for goodness sake, complete with arm motions.

We were singing it most of the afternoon:

Reeeeeduce, reuse, recycle, recycle, recycle. . . .reduce, reuse, recycle it’s good for us all. . . .

Earplugs on, and we were ready to see how things got sorted!
You know this mama loves some sorting!

This conveyor belt moved bottles to their places. . .

And then finally we saw the last belt where glass was sorted. It couldn’t have been cooler to watch, and if it weren’t so loud, I think that most of my MOMS Club pals and I could have stayed for a good long while.

So that was some serious, earth-friendly learning for today. Maddy and Owen really seemed to enjoy it, and they couldn’t wait to tell their dad about it when they got home.

I’ll say this over and over, but I continue to be amazed at what is available in my very own community when I make a simple phone call and beg, plead, and whine for a tour. (I’m kidding.)

Today, our kiddos left with coloring books, the moms left with info on recycling (I might have been doing almost everything wrong for the last few years, but now I know . . ), and some of us even went home with compost bins. Looks like we’ll be doing some compost-learning in the next few weeks over here, too.